Case packers have been well known in the article handling art for many years. In such case packers, it has been known to provide an in-coming stream of containers such as bottles and a similar in-coming stream of cases. In many known systems, the containers are received and transported by a conveyor positioned above a somewhat similar conveyor which receives and transports the cases. The containers are received by a packing head or fill head which is positioned above a packing station which, in many instances, includes a case lift for elevating the case to a position immediately below the fill head for receiving the containers.
In the prior art, case packers have generally operated on a start/stop basis, and have not been characterized by a continuous operation of the conveyor for both the cases and containers.
The prior art is further devoid of a case packer wherein there is a positive action clearing of cases from the case lift station of the packer and wherein both a staging area and a case lift area are mechanically tied together to attain positive action therebetween. Absent this type of structure, the prior art case packers have generally been slow in operation and, to some degree, unreliable. Yet further, the prior art has typically taught a case in-feed section wherein cases were singlely fed to the case packer, but moved only by the frictional engagement of the case with the conveyor chain. Slippage between the case and the chain typically resulted in a delay in case movement and an inherent slowness in operation of the case packer.